THE
SCHOOL OF CHARITYTHE
SCHOOL OF CHARITY 
Listen
to Trinity College Choir sing Walford Davis's beautiful hymn, "God
be in my Head".
Music details HERE.
In the humility of thine infinite goodness, O God,
thou dost show thyself as though thou were our creature,
that thus thou mayest draw us unto thee.
—Nicolas of Cusa.
The Word of God became visible to us through the
Incarnation.
— St. Thomas Aquinas.
And now we turn
from that overwhelming vision
of a Creative Power and Love within us and above us,
which is the Fact of facts for the religious soul,
and we look at our own small lives and experiences:
the confused material of everyday existence—
with its social and personal demands,
its ceaseless tension
between natural and spiritual,
mind and matter—
with which we all have to deal.
For it is there that we need so desperately
the sanctifying presence of the Divine Charity,
and there that it is so easily lost.
There God must find us and abide with us,
before we can ever find Him or abide with Him.
And the next great Christian statement about Reality
declares that this is what happens,
and goes on happening all the time.
One Lord ...
God of God, Light of Light ...
who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.
Of whom do we make
this amazing statement?
We make it of the Divine Reason,
the creative Thought of God,
by whom all things are made.
The Artist-Lover does not work on His creation from outside.
The Absolute God,
whom we can never escape but never comprehend,
enters human life
"not driven by necessity but drawn by Charity "
and shows Himself to us in our own terms.
William Blake, in
one of his great flashes of insight,
said that there is in every human being two limits:
Satan and Adam.
Satan,
the vigorous individualist, the self-adoring, self-sufficing creature,
is the limit of what we can become under the steady action of self-will.
His term of growth is that self-completion of which modern men are dreaming
once more.
He can give us all the kingdoms of this world.
Already his submarines explore the deeps and his aeroplanes insult the heights.
Adam,
the unfinished, plastic creature, being made in the image of God,
is slowly and tentatively producing under the steady action of the Divine
Charity
here one bit, and there another bit,
of the Divine vision of perfect man:
Christ our Brother.
One way or another,
we are all conscious of this two fold possibility in us,
these two limits of animal and spiritual man;
one the fruit of self assertion,
the other of docility.
The inner life,
at least in its early stages,
is mainly realized as the tension between them.
On one hand
there is the steady, secret pressure of the yeast of grace,
ever at work creating Adam,
even though perhaps there is not much to show for it yet;
and the half-made creature struggling to breathe and to grow.
On the other hand there is Satan,
instinctive animal man,
in command of all the lower centres of consciousness,
aware of his own crude energy and holding on to his rights—
the I, the Me, and the Mine.
All this will I give thee if thou wilt worship Me.
Who then is to rule
in the house of life?
Who really sets the standard for humanity:
animal man,
the splendid creature with his instinct for dominance, intelligence and skill,
or spiritual man,
the strange, dependent, unfinished thing?
Christianity has no doubts about this.
I believe in one Lord;
one supreme utterance of God within history,
setting the standard,
declaring the type.
His Word,
the expression of His Thought,
speaks by means of one of His creatures, in a language we can understand,
and says,
"This is the truth about humanity;
this is what Adam is meant to be.
I desire a creature made in My own image,
the image of the Divine Charity:
cleansed of all self-love and therefore capable of Infinite Love.
So, I come to My own creatures,
enter history in My mysterious being, My eternal reality,
by means of a creature, Perfect Man:
and show you what is meant by Infinite Love expressed in human terms."
This, of course,
is what theology means by the Incarnation;
the eternal Charity of God finding utterance within His creation,
and making of the common material of our earthly existence
a revelation of His nature
and so of the real nature of man.
Divine Reality comes to us where we are,
not as an "explanation" of our strange life
—for this we could not understand
—but as a direction how to live it;
and a very homely yet arduous direction too.
The Revelation of God,
as Brunner has said,
is not a book or a doctrine but a living Person:
a person whose story and statements, in every point and detail,
give us some deep truth about the life and will of that God who creates and
sustains us,
and about the power and vocation of a soul which is transformed in Him,
and pays ungrudgingly the price of generous love.
The "Mysteries" of Christ's earthly life, to give them their ancient
name,
have a beauty and truth of their own
which lie on the surface, and which no one can miss.
But this is nothing to the unfathomable truths which they reveal
to those who contemplate them from within the world of prayer.
They are like windows which break up the radiance of the Divine Charity into
shapes and colours with which we can deal.
It sometimes happens
that one goes to see a cathedral which is famous for the splendour of its
glass;
only to discover that,
seen from outside, the windows give us no hint whatever of that which awaits
us within.
They all look alike; dull, thick, and grubby.
From this point of view we already realize that they are ancient, important,
the proper objects of reverence and study.
But we cannot conceive that solemn coloured mystery,
that richness of beauty, and meaning
which is poured through them upon those who are inside the shrine.
Then we open the door, and go inside.
We leave the outer world and enter the inner world;
and at once we are surrounded by a radiance,
a beauty, that lie beyond the fringe of speech.
The universal Light of God in which we live and move,
and yet which in its reality always escapes us,
pours through those windows;
bathes us in an inconceivable colour and splendour,
and shows us things of which we never dreamed before.
In the same way,
the deep mysteries of the Being of God and the call of the soul
cannot be seen by us, until they have passed through a human medium, a human
life.
Nor can that life, and all that it means as a revelation of God, His eternal
truth and beauty, be realized by us from the outside.
One constantly hears people commenting on Christianity, passing judgment
on Christianity;
and missing the point every time, because they are on the wrong side of the
wall.
It is only within the place of prayer, recollection, worship and love,
the place where the altar is and where sacrifice is made,
that we can cleanse our vision,
overcome our self-interested bias,
and fully and truly receive the revelation of Reality which is made to us
in Christ.
There we begin to
understand how every stage and action of that life gives us something from
beyond itself.
It is like a series of windows, through which there streams into our human
world
the pure and life-giving light of the Eternal Charity,
mediated to us in a way that we can bear;
so that
the eyes of the mind beholding the brightness of that splendour,
by contemplating God made visible,
we are caught up to the Invisible Love
as the ancient Preface for Christmas Day has it.
Here Eternal Reality is
given us in human terms;
convincing us of the reality of beauty,
the reality of holiness,
and the messy unreality of most of our own lives.
Every time we re-enter that Cathedral of the Spirit,
contemplate our Christian treasure from inside,
we receive a fresh gift from its inexhaustible beauty and truth.
As our humble receptiveness deepens
and our eyes become more and more disciplined to that strange radiance,
we see something we never noticed before;
penetrating, purifying and quickening us,
enhancing our sense of the mystery and significance of our own life,
its mingled homeliness and wonder.
Yet all that we have so far seen
is nothing to that which is still in reserve for us;
waiting for the cleansing and sanctification of our sight.
Plato spoke of this life as a cave, in which men are imprisoned,
only able to judge reality by the shadows which are cast by the light outside.
But for Christians the cave
—like some of those in which once the Pagan Mysteries were celebrated
—has become a shrine.
In that shrine we are shown truth pouring through the windows of holiness;
and are moulded for the true purpose of our creation,
a life of charity, united to the self-giving generosity which is God.
For here, a Light we can
bear to look at,
and looking at must adore,
comes to us from a Light we cannot bear to look at even whilst we worship
it.
The mystery of Reality enters history very gently by a human channel,
and shows the character of Perfect Love within the life of man;
gives us something to hold on to,
a Truth which is also a Way and a Life.
What we see is not very sensational:
but if ye look at it steadily, it pierces the heart.
First we see a baby, and a long hidden growth;
and then the unmeasured outpouring and self-spending
of an other-worldly love and mercy,
teaching, healing, rescuing and transforming,
but never trying to get anything for itself.
And when we look deeper,
we see beyond this a mysterious self-imparting,
and a more mysterious anguish and struggle;
consummated at last in the most generous and lonely of deaths,
issuing in a victory which has given life ever since to men's souls.
Through this vivid life
—what Christ does and how He does it,
His prayer,
His compassionate healing action.
His use of suffering,
His communion with God and man
—the light of Reality floods our twilit inner lives;
showing us the human transfigured by the Divine.
This is what St. Ignatius Loyola intended and desired when he taught his
pupils to
contemplate the Mysteries of the Life of Christ.
Few people do it properly.
They are too anxious to get on and be practical:
for the lesson of the one thing needful
is a lesson which human nature instinctively resists.
Yet we shall make our own small work of art all the better
if we soak our souls in that beauty first.
This simple contemplation
of Christ is a very important part of the life of prayer:
for we receive spiritual truth far more by absorption than by exploration,
moreover, that which we see has a direct bearing on our own inner life,
which is required to conform to the pattern here disclosed to us.
Again and again the mystics have insisted
that every homely incident of this story has a precise and immortal meaning
for the spirit of man.
Historical religion only matters
because it shows us something happening on the stage of this world,
which is eternally happening and eternally true in the spiritual world.
The cycle of growth from the Manger to the Cross must take place in every
soul;
and every soul must be subdued to the teaching, healing and transfiguring
action of the Word on the plastic raw material of human personality.
Nothing is there by accident.
No stage or phase can be left out:
for here " God speaks in a Son,"
the very substance of the Holy,
incarnate by the action of that Spirit who is the Giver of all life.
Thus in our struggle to express even our fragmentary vision of God's purpose,
we are forced to pass backwards and forwards between the different aspects
of His self-giving love.
Christian belief in its richness can never rest long in one alone.
When Prudence was catechizing little James in the House of the Interpreter,
she expressed great satisfaction because that remarkably theological child
insisted that he was both made and saved by the whole Trinity.
And perhaps deeper meditation on the splendour of our faith in its wholeness
might indeed enlighten our eyes, to behold anew the Charity of that God
Who reveals Himself supremely by hiding Himself in humanity;
uttering His Word within history
so that we His creatures, living historical lives in space and time,
may meet the Holy there as at once our Brother and our Lord.
When we consider the heavens,
and the awful vistas which science reveals to us,
and then contemplate this generosity—
so searching in its tenderness, and so passing knowledge in its energy,
that mere religious sentiment wilts when it draws near and "practical
Christianity" is beaten to its knees—
then before this lowly and yet sublime self-giving of the Very Godhead to
its creation,
we are surely forced to some faint reflection of that same charity in our
turn.
For this deep and searching process points to something else beyond the mere
improvement of this world and its conditions,
or the mere comfort of our own little souls.
God in His essential Being is Charity;
God so loved that He gave,
therefore to dwell in Charity means giving in our turn,
a movement of unconditioned generosity which shall be the expression of love.
The human soul cuts rather a ridiculous figure,
clutching its own bit of luggage,
its private treasures, its position, its personality, its rights,
over against the holy self-giving of Absolute Love manifest in the flesh.
That strange and glimmering Presence,
standing on the frontier between the divine and human worlds,
attracting and convicting us,
asks a total and flexible self-offering as the only possible attitude of
man.
Christ's human nature,
says the Theologia Germanica,
was so utterly emptied of self and all creatures that it was nothing else but the house, the habitation, the possession of God.
Only thus could the celestial wisdom enter our life; and the conditions are still the same.
Who for us men and our salvation came down.
Why?
So that we could know something about Holiness.
For no amount of description really tells us anything about Holiness;
but an encounter with it shames, amazes, convinces and delights us all at
once.
Thou art the Christ!
says St. Peter.
My Lord and my God!
says St. Thomas.
They recognize something from beyond the world:
One who enters our mixed life in His perfect beauty;
and accepts all the normal conditions of an existence
which is so much at the mercy of seasons and weather, thirst and hunger,
so afflicted by distresses we do not understand,
so vexed by devils we cannot cast out
and tainted by sins we cannot forget.
Through all this that Figure is walking;
radiating in and through every situation a selfless charity,
an untiring interest and love.
The Word has spoken; and spoken in the language of everyday life.
And because of this, within that everyday life man always has access to God;
and can never, at any point in his career claim ignorance of the drift of
God's Will,
even though his own duty and action may often be hard to decide.
God is Charity;
and the human race has one Lord, who is Incarnate Charity
and carries through its utmost demands to the Altar and the Cross.
Every decision, therefore, that the Christian takes in life will be controlled
by the fact that it must be compatible with following Him.
This means that no Christian life will avoid Calvary;
though we may come to it by many different ways.
So, because Holiness has
entered our world, and appeared in our nature,
we know that men and women can become holy;
and are bound, in spite of all discouragements, to take an optimistic view
of human life.
The Church is an undying family which has its face set towards Holiness,
and is fed upon the food which can—if we let it —produce Holiness.
As the queen bee is produced by being fed from childhood on "royal jelly," and
thus becomes the parent of new life;
so it is what the Christian is given,
and what he assimilates of the supernatural food—
not what he is by nature—
which makes him grow up into the life-giving order of God.
The final test of holiness is not seeming very different from other people,
but being used to make other people very different;
becoming the parent of new life.
It is true that before
this happens we must ourselves be changed;
must absorb the "royal jelly," feed on the Divine Charity.
The saints are there to show us that this is a practical necessity,
not a devotional day-dream.
Their lives disclose to us in all its delicacy and perfection God's creative
action in the realm of soul.
As we enter into those transformed and sacrificial lives
—some of them so near in time and place to our own
—we see what it really means to have one Lord.
It means everything else in life subordinated to this one fact: no exceptions.
It means Francis Xavier and David Livingstone travelling for Him to the ends
of the earth,
and Father Wainright living for Him for half a century in one slum;
Bunyan going to prison for Him,
and Francis de Sales and Fenelon going to Court for Him;
Mary Slessor ruling in the jungle and Julian of Norwich hidden in the anchoress'
cell;
Elizabeth Fry facing the criminals in Newgate gaol
and Josephine Butler facing the shocked hostility of Victorian piety;
Elizabeth Leseur accepting a painful and limited life,
Charles de Foucauld going out into great spaces and dying alone in the desert
with his love.
What follows from all
this?
What follows—
and the saints show it to us again and again in the various beauty of their
lives—
is that we are not required to go outside the frame of normal experience
in order to fulfil the creative design of God for souls.
There is no place and no career which lies outside Eternity,
and cannot incarnate something of the Eternal Charity.
What was done in the carpenter's shop can be done in the engineer's shop
too.
"Perfect God and perfect Man" is a formula which endorses our ordinary
human life,
even in its most forbidding phases,
as fully adequate to the demands of spiritual life;
so long as that human life really has one Lord.
It matters little that the stable gives way before the garage,
the temple before the church,
or that hydroplanes alight on the Sea of Galilee.
This is surely an important
truth for us.
It shows that there need be no separation, no forced option between our life
of action and our life of prayer.
In the saints, the action and the prayer are mixed together, and make something
quite concrete.
The mirage shall become a pool !
says Isaiah.
The lovely glowing dream
seen in our meditations becomes a genuine reality,
a source of living water for the thirsty,
when we find ourselves in the disconcerting presence of a saint.
There are plenty of spiritual systems which show us the beautiful mirage.
Only in Christianity does it become a pool, a reservoir of living water to
refresh our thirsty world.
So I believe in one Lord ... incarnate with all that lies between, means
"I believe in the Divine Charity which is Reality,
self-revealed in human nature and among the normal surroundings of men.
And further, because of this
I believe in the possibility of my nature being so transformed by the creative
action of the Spirit,
that it may become part of the Mystical Body through which that revelation
goes on;
for the Divine Charity is still pressing into life through our narrow souls,
seeking to bring in the Kingdom of God.
Therefore my whole life, physical, intellectual and spiritual must be governed
by this fact:
by my trust in the unlimited power of God to remake me here and now—
in my present environment, however unpromising it looks—
and by an absolute, generous willingness to co-operate with Him, however
much it hurts.
Every event, situation, joy or contradiction can be so dealt with
that it strengthens either the rule of Charity within the soul
or the rule of self-love.
All depends on whether attention is focused on the great purposes of God,
or our own small purposes;
even those small purposes to which we like to give spiritual rank.
For however harmless and
legitimate those personal aims may seem to be,
they lie under suspicion if they do not incarnate something of the spirit
of self-imparting Love.
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